Breeding out a breed?

[KelleyBee]

Well, if it was me, I'd probably wait to see how the kits look. The idea with culling is to make careful decisions. For instance, will the new kit bucks be better than the sire? I have an unpedigreed American chin doe who is sweet, gentle, kind, and the flat out best momma I've ever had. I kept her first daughter and bred her. She is sweet and gentle, but lost 3 kits out of her first litter of 8, and despite being 2 weeks younger than her mom's litter they are smaller--strike 1. Now she's had a litter of 11. They are tiny. She's feeding them, but I expect to foster half of them on to her mom in a week or so, just to keep them growing. Meanwhile Mom raised 9, and they are fat and sassy and ready for harvest weeks ahead of schedule.

Point is, right now Mom is the keeper. This fall I'll cull the daughter and raise a different girl from the good momma.

Your buck is half your herd, so pick the very best one you can.

Thank you for your advice. Both bucks in question are from my NZ/Cali mix buck and doe I originally began with. The sire is a real sweetie. The buck that looks like NZ has the same sweet temperament. The one who looks like a Cali is sweet,too, but is also very evidently an alpha male in temperament towards his peers. Neither give me behavior reasons to cull or keep. It’s all about this little genetics experiment I’m trying. I’m just confused about who should stay and who should go. As much as I’d like, I can’t keep them all. The kits from the Cali mating will be born June 6. I have not yet had a successful mating between the pair that look like pure rew nz. I hope that happens Friday this week.

 

[eco2pia]

Right, I am suggesting you grow out the kits to at least weaning age, decide on the best male or female from the bunch, and eat the rest.

Then evaluate the potential keeper against your current stock on whatever criteria you are seeking, be that type, weight gain, etc. If your current stock are better, eat the kit and try again. If the kit looks better than the current stock did at their age keep until adulthood, reevaluate frequently. If at some point you are satisfied that the offspring are better than or equivalent to their parents then cull the parents. If the reverse is true, then cull the offspring and try again.

The point is, not every litter yields a keeper, so if you cull the parents the second you have kits and don't evaluate carefully as you go, you will end up bottlenecking the line, and causing the kind of concentration of flaws that you want to avoid. If you don't have space, keep the pair that's breeding quickly and easily and get rid of one whole line. Then you will have free cages to work with for the other line.

 

[KelleyBee]

Thank you for this detailed how-to explanation. Of the two genetic lines I am exploring, I am partial to the NZ REW. I like the California's too, but since they are a smaller breed, I actually have less of an interest in them but also do still value them, so I am not ready to make a terminal decision on their line.

 

[hotzcatz]

I've sold off bunnies too soon. A nice big litter was born so I figured I'd keep a buck from that and sold the sire just to find out several weeks later that they were all females. Or something happens to the replacement before it gets to be adult. Plus there's months between the time a baby bunny is born before it can actively go into the breeding herd. Can you make more bunny space to have room for grow outs?